


alibi room

by proval



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Canon Divergent, M/M, but mickey hanging out with terry, canon typical homophobic language from terry, follows canon until after 10-09, i guess, no mentions of abuse, post 10-09, proposal speculation, wrote this before 10-10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-25 08:01:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22232743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/proval/pseuds/proval
Summary: Yeah, I started this before 10/10 and the promo for 10/10. It's just a version of the proposal. A lot less dramatic than the one we got on screen. I got pretty interested in the idea of Mickey hanging out with Terry and the Milkoviches again, and the dynamics of returning to an abuser, and wanted to explore that, how Ian would feel about that etc. It's not resolved in this fic as I reckon it's the kind of thing that would take years to resolve, if it was ever to be resolved.
Relationships: Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich, Ian Gallagher/Original Male Character(s), Mickey Milkovich/Byron
Kudos: 98





	alibi room

“Alibi Room, huh? Do we need an alibi? Doing some crimes later?”

Jack had been waiting for Ian outside the bar. Probably came up with that line as he was freezing his ass off for the last ten minutes. Ian chuckled politely. Him being on parole hadn’t come up in their brief Grindr chat a couple of hours ago. He vaguely wondered how that conversation would go. 

“I know the people who run this place.” He smiled “They’re pretty nice.” 

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Jack caught his eye as they tumbled in. “Dyou think asking for a martini would be pushing my luck?”

Ian laughed, waving to V behind the bar and turning to Tommy and Kermit, a response at the tip of his tongue. It disappeared. Mickey was there. In the middle of the bar, staring. Holding a pool cue and a beer bottle. Wearing a plaid shirt with a tank underneath. His mouth was slightly open. His eyes ricocheted from Jack back to Ian. 

As soon as Ian regained the brain power to step towards him, Mickey turned away, back towards the pool table at the back and the group of... fuck... Milkoviches, Terry included, surrounding it. 

“You know them?” asked Jack, tugging Ian back to the fact he was on a fucking date.

“Uh, the local homophobes.” 

“Oh shit, well should we go somewhere else?” 

“No, fuck it. You want to sit down, I’ll get us some beer?” 

Jack didn’t seem unhappy it wasn’t a martini when Ian made it back to the table. Maybe that had a been a joke? Who knew? Hard to concentrate with the feeling that Mickey was boring holes into the back of his head with his eyes. Each time Ian shifted to check he wasn’t looking, though. 

This had kinda been the point of the date. Tit for tat. Make Mickey jealous. Or even just make Mickey realise that two could play at that game. That considered Ian had lucked out that Mickey was here. Ian had thought he’d still be fucking Byron in that swish north side apartment. Or pretending to fuck Byron. Had they actually been fucking?

Ian glanced back to the Milkoviches again at the sound of a cue hitting the white and the soft drop of a ball into a pocket. 

“Hey, we can go somewhere else you know?” Jack was taking a worried sip of his beer across the table. He gestured with his head over to them. “It’s good to be proud you know but don’t have to wave the flag in front of the NRA.” 

Ian gave him a half smile. He never felt comfortable around Terry, but he wasn’t going to go without Mickey. Just got to wait to catch him alone somehow. Or maybe Ian’d have to go over there. The fucker was arguing with his cousin over a foul, and then, sweet mercy, Mickey’s cue clattered on a table and he made towards the bathroom. Ian would have been in there like a shot if it wasn’t for the crutches slowing him down. 

“Careful.” Jack murmured as Ian hobbled off. 

Mickey was facing the urinal, looking down when Ian got there. He’d lost the shirt somewhere and his arms were on show, deltoids peaking from his tank. Had he expected Ian to follow? He turned his head a fraction and then back away again.

“Gallagher.” He acknowledged, casually, before turning around, eyes glinting. “So who’s he?” 

Ian bypassed Mickey’s question and got straight to what he wanted to know. “Hanging out with your dad, Mickey?” 

Mickey smiled and shook his head. “This payback or some shit? Or... what I got you tempted? Thought you’d get yourself some nice north side dick?” 

“So... what scams has he got you running? Unregistered firearms? Coke?” 

“Why you want me to hook you up?” 

“Fuck you.” They stared at each other. Ian took a breath. Softened. “I didn’t think you’d be here. Thought you were still with Byron.”

“Oh OK so you and this guy is just about fucking around on me then.” 

Ian couldn’t believe this shit sometimes. “You _moved in_ with someone else.” 

“Whatever Gallagher. You done?” Mickey gestured vaguely past Ian, made to get through. 

“Why aren’t you with him? You know... Byron?” 

Mickey stopped. Looked up into Ian’s eyes and then away again. 

“He fucking kicked me out alright. Thought I’d pissed in his Vespa or some shit. I don’t know.” 

Ian quickly filed through a range of responses to that, landing somewhere between guilt and glee. And then to guilt again, to apprehension, to dread. “So where you staying? Not back with Terry?”

Mickey stared up at him, teeth grazing over his bottom lip.

“Fuck that, Mickey. We don’t have to...” Ian stopped, braced himself for his next words, “be together. Just please. Come back home.” 

_Home._ The word slipped out and couldn’t come back. It made Mickey screw up his face. It made Ian’s chest ache. All the feelings from two nights ago suddenly very present. You’re kidding me. Fucking promise rings. _Jesus Christ, Ian._

“Marry me.” The words left his mouth before he could stop them. _What the fuck?_ Did he mean that? 

Mickey’s expression echoed how Ian felt. Shocked. Confused. Doubtful. But angry too, and then the anger suddenly went.

“What?” He was quiet. 

“Marry me.” Ian said again. Again without meaning to. But this time the words were firmer. They were more real. 

“Ian, don’t--” Mickey’s voice cracked. “Don’t fuck with me.”

Mickey was looking for an escape. Ian’s crutches were propped up on the door behind him, making a route out difficult. Mick wasn’t moving though. He was just making sure he could. Ian picked them up, using them awkwardly to shuffle towards him. 

“I’m not,” Ian murmured.

“You can’t just say that shit. The fuck’s changed since last time?”

Ian struggled a moment with his leg, shifting his weight. His voice was low. “I need you to come home.”

“You feel bad, you--you think you have to protect me--that you owe me shit. It’s the same--”

“I love you.”

Mickey drew his hand to his mouth, wiped the back of it along his lips, stared up at Ian. 

“It _is_ the same.” He took a step away, “You’re gonna leave me a--”

“Mickey. I won’t. I won’t fucking leave you.” Ian scrabbled for a minute, using the wall and a crutch, trying to get down to the floor. 

“Ian, don’t fucking--” 

He made it. To one knee. He took Mickey’s hand. Mickey who was rolling his eyes then staring at him. 

“Mickey, I never backed out because I don’t love you enough or whatever the fuck you said. It was because I was scared I was gonna screw up. And I still am. I’m terrified. But I want to do this for us, because you deserve it, because I want to be with you for, you know--” Ian swallowed to try and get his voice to go level again. “Forever.”

Mickey stared back. Teeth grazing his bottom lip. 

“So?”

Mickey blinked. “So... you gonna say sorry for not signing the papers first time round?”

“Really?”

Mickey just looked at him. 

“I’m really fucking sorry Mickey.” 

Mickey reached out. Took Ian’s cheek in his hand, swiped a thumb over the faint bruise still under Ian’s eye. Ian felt it, the slightest sting, the softest touch. “M’sorry too.” Mickey murmured.

Then he wiped his thumb under Ian’s eye, this time catching a tear. “Shhh.” He said, though no one was speaking. “OK, get the fuck up. Let’s get married. Why you fucking down there anyway when your leg’s all fucked up...?” 

Mickey tugged Ian to his feet and to his mouth, cradling his jaw, and then the nape of his neck, muttering when he got air “... fucking propose to me in the bathroom...”

“... fucking let me go off with some...” Their mouths met again. Mickey’s hands dipped, one falling between Ian’s pecs, the other running just under the small of Ian’s back, fingertips beneath his waistband, “... fuck I need...”

God did Ian miss those freakishly small hands. But they weren’t going to fuck in the Alibi bathrooms. Not when they had a bed. Not with Terry out there. And with Ian’s fucking date out there too. 

Mickey’s mouth was desperate too, following Ian’s as he pulled away. Ian had to swipe Mickey’s lips with his thumb, readjust the collar of his shirt for him. 

“Hold up, Mickey.” 

Mickey licked his lips and sighed. “Keep me waiting, Gallagher?”

“Your dad’s out there.” 

Mickey collected some saliva in the side of his mouth and spat towards the urinals.

“So?”

Ian smiled. “Let me take you home.” He shrugged. “Also gotta apologise to Jack.” 

Mickey’s eyebrows shot up. “That his name, huh?”

Ian smiled wider and Mickey ducked past him to hold the bathroom door open. When Ian hobbled through though, Jack wasn’t there. 

Terry greeted them instead, waving a pool cue. “Your little fairy friend had to go, Carrotboy.” 

Ian glanced at Mickey, who didn’t look too annoyed by the news. His own anger flared. “You mean you fucked with him?” 

“No! He left.” Terry gave an exaggerated shrug, missing earnestness by a mile. “Said he wanted some martini shit and scrammed when they didn’t have any.” 

“Thanks, Pops,” Mickey said softly. 

Ian glared at him. They were going to have to have a fucking conversation about that. 

“Sorry Ian.” Kev chimed in as they walked out of Terry’s immediate earshot, towards the bar. Kev glanced towards the bathroom door before getting back to trying to work something out on the till. “I told him you and Mickey were probably banging in there.” 

Ian glanced back to Mickey who just raised his eyebrows. _See?_

*

“You bang him?” Mickey asked, pretty quiet, as he pulled his smokes out of his jacket pocket, hands shaking a bit with the cold. 

“No.” Ian sighed. Equally quiet. Staring as Mickey got out a cigarette. Put it in his mouth. Lit up.

Mickey’s slid to his own as Mickey breathed it in. 

“We just met. First date. Never intended to fuck him. Trying to get back at you for Byron.”

Mickey nodded. Took the cigarette away from his mouth. Looked down and away, a little nervously.

“We banged. Me and Byron.” 

“OK.” Ian breathed. 

Mickey glanced back up at him.

“It’s too fucking cold to stand around, Mick.” Ian’s hand folded around Mickey’s bicep for a moment, wrapped up in his jacket, and they got moving. 

Their arms brushed against each other. Their hands tangled briefly and then came undone. Mickey was buzzing next to him. Not speaking and trying to keep all that neediness from earlier under wraps. His hand swiped Ian’s side. They turned a street corner, the Gallagher house in sight. 

“Let’s get married fucking properly.” Ian was quiet. “With a ceremony and shit.” 

“Yeah. Sure.” said Mickey. 

“Is that what you want?”

“Yeah.” he said again. “Tuxes. Limos. All the fucking family. You still got my ring right?”

“Right.” They were in a drawer back in Ian’s bedroom. In _their_ bedroom. They could put them on later. 

Ian couldn’t help himself anymore, even with the crutches. He held them both in one arm and slung his other arm around Mickey’s shoulder. Immediately, Mickey nestled into his side. Fuck, Mickey had been wanting this the whole way back. To be invited in, tight to Ian’s side. Ian squeezed his shoulder. Well, he was here now, at least. He pressed a kiss into Mickey’s temple and leaned into him, letting Mickey guide the way back.


End file.
